by Peter Geye
“Is that right?”
“For more than ten years now,” Sargent said. He coupled his hands on the table in front of him, leaned in. “I’ve never seen a boat like that one out there. What’s it for?”
“I’m a fisherman,” Odd said, the half truth of it caused his stomach to drop.
“A fisherman from Gunflint wintering up in Duluth?”
“My wife and I, we’re honeymooning.” He felt his voice falter.
“I might have chose Key Largo,” Sargent said.
“I never even heard of Key Largo.”
“I suppose not.”
The waiter brought a tray with two cups of coffee. He set one before each of the men and then set a bowl of sugar cubes and a creamer between them.
Sargent said to Odd, “You want a Danish? Some eggs?”
“I’m fine with the coffee.”
Sargent turned to the waiter. “How about a couple of Danishes?”
Again the waiter nodded and left. Sargent doctored his coffee with the cream and sugar. He took a cigarette from his shirt pocket, offered the pack to Odd, who took one. Sargent struck a match on his boot sole and lit his cigarette and offered the match to Odd. They both took long drags and sat back in their chairs.
“Mostly it’s yachtsmen and rowers belong to this club. You’re paying ten dollars a month for what would cost ten dollars for the whole winter upriver.”
Odd looked through the cigarette smoke at Sargent, whose eyes were even more forbidding inside the boat club.
“It was the first place I saw entering the harbor last night.”
“I see,” Sargent said. He took another long drag from his cigarette. “Where are you and the missus staying?”
“The Spalding Hotel.”
“Nice place.”
“Awfully so,” Odd said.
They sat in silence until the waiter brought the pastries. Sargent took an enormous bite, took a long drink of his steaming coffee.
“What kind of motor’s running that boat of yours?”
“A Buda. Company out of Illinois.”
“Six-stroke?”
“Four. She don’t speed along, but usually the fish are waiting for me in the nets.”
Sargent smiled. “Most of the fishermen I know between here and the Soo fish in skiffs. What you got is more like a lobsterman’s boat.”
Odd took a final drag from the cigarette and stubbed it out. He leaned back in his chair and looked at Sargent. He was feeling defensive, as though Sargent suspected him of something. “I’ve been a herring choker almost as long as you been building boats. Spent enough time soaking wet to want a little dryness. So I built a bigger boat with a cockpit. Here I am.”
Harald Sargent only nodded, took another bite of his Danish.
Now Odd shifted in his seat, leaned forward instead of back. “I’m not sure I understand you, Mister Sargent. I’ve got the feeling there’s something you’re wanting to say.”
“You should come take a look at my shop.”
“I’m not really in the market for a new boat.”
Odd felt pierced by the boatwright’s gaze, by those eyes as heavy as granite seeing right through him. In a way it was a relief. Sargent stubbed out his own cigarette and finished his Danish. “Son, you’re spending money faster than you could throw it into the lake. On a fisherman’s wages — if fisherman is what you are — you’re going to need a job. I make no judgments. I don’t even want to know what you’ve left behind or where you think you’re heading. But if you honestly built that boat, then I’m in some sort of company. I got a crew of seven and I need eight. Even if it’s only for a few months, through the winter, I could use the help. I’ve got two dozen boats to deliver by springtime.
“Now"—he leaned forward again, knocked the tabletop with his big knuckles—"you steal one single screwdriver, one drop of paint thinner, I’ll throw you right out the back door.” His look softened. “But if you’re ready to live an honest life, making an honest buck, and if you can be up this early every day, then come see me.” Sargent reached into his coat and withdrew his wallet and from a pocket in his wallet took a business card. He handed it to Odd. “We’re the last stop on the Oneota-Superior line, on the west end, out at the mouth of the St. Louis River.”
Odd looked at the business card. He wanted to say thanks. Instead he flicked the card against his finger, said, “The coffee is on me, Mister Sargent.”
Harald Sargent stood up. He took his coat from the back of his chair and pulled it on. “Are you familiar with the good book, Mister Eide?”
“We’ve got believers down the shore.”
“Are you one of them?”
“There’s plenty I believe in.”
“But plenty you don’t?”
Odd shrugged.
“Because I’ve seen that boat of yours, and because I can tell you’re a decent fellow, I forgive your mother for not showing you the way of the Lord. But the words of scripture are succor in the worst of times, and I’ll leave you with this wisdom from King Solomon.” Sargent raised three fingers. “There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea"—now he raised a fourth finger—"four which I know not: the way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.” He pulled his fingers into a fist. “You puzzle over that, you think about my offer, and then come see me. I’m there every day but the Sabbath. I thank you for the coffee.”
Odd wanted to say something, anything, but Sargent’s words and his look steadier than ever made him dumb. Instead of speaking he nodded, knowing certainly, as he watched Sargent walk away, that he would find the shop the next morning.
Odd was still sitting there when the boatyard custodian came into the dining room. He told Odd that his boat was on the rack and that he could now retrieve whatever it was he needed. Odd thanked him and laid some coins on the tabletop and followed the custodian out into the boatyard. There was a ladder leaning against his boat and Odd climbed it and went to the thwart before the motor box. He lifted the seat and removed the lid from the false floor inside and from within that secret compartment he removed a small metal box that held within it a roll of cash money and the diamond ring he’d bought off old man Veilleux when his ancient wife had passed in July of that year.
He climbed down off the boat and watched as a crew of three boatyard custodians covered his boat with a canvas tarp that flapped in the stiff breeze until thirty or more cords of rope held it tight. Then he walked back toward the gondola, where he waited to cross the canal again. By the time he returned to the Spalding Hotel there was two or three inches of snow on the ground and no sign of it lightening.
XX.
(August 1896)
She’d begun measuring the passage of time by the movements of the baby in her belly. Each morning she’d wake to the fluttering below her ribs and reach her hand to settle the child, to settle herself. She’d rise and change from her nightdress to housedress and brush her hair and go to the kitchen and in the first light of the day would make breakfast for Hosea and Rebekah. Often as not Hosea was already up, a kettle of coffee warm on the stove and his footfalls soft on the floor below her. Rebekah would only wake with the smell of the bacon and biscuits.
Together they’d take breakfast, Hosea reading the Ax & Beacon while Rebekah and Thea sat in silence. After the biscuits and bacon, the canned fruit and coffee, the buttered oatmeal and poached eggs, Hosea would adjourn to the store on the first floor while Rebekah tended to her exhaustive toilet. Thea, meanwhile, would clear the breakfast dishes and wash them in the porcelain sink. After the cleaning, she’d simply retire to the davenport under the bay window and take up her crocheting needles. The morning moved slowly and in those halcyon hours the only thing to distract her from her ease was her lingering fear regarding the whereabouts of Joshua Smith. Of the father of this child.
It had been Rebekah who’d first noticed Thea’s rounding belly. One morning in June,
after Hosea had gone downstairs to open the apothecary, in the privacy of their shared bedroom, Rebekah rose from the bed while Thea was changing her dress. Rebekah crossed the carpet and put her hand on Thea’s belly.
“Look at this,” she whispered.
Thea did look down. She’d been missing her monthlies all that spring and so knew what was coming to life inside her. But her knowing was surreal, and it took Rebekah’s noticing to bring the dream to life.
Rebekah was wide-eyed. She looked from Thea’s belly to her eyes and back again. “It’s scandalous,” she said, still whispering, a devious grin turning up on her lips.
Thea felt the color rising in her cheeks. She removed Rebekah’s hand and quickly dressed.
Rebekah, from the other side of the room, wide-eyed and calculating, said, “Is this from the watch salesman? Is this Joshua Smith’s child?”
Thea, with Hosea’s help, had been learning English those days, but the bedlam in her mind left her uncomprehending.
“Your child will be a bastard,” Rebekah said. “The son or daughter of a fugitive.” She was walking toward Thea, who stood before the mirror attempting to gather herself. Rebekah’s voice was barely above a whisper now. “What will you do, Thea?”
Thea turned to face Rebekah. She felt her eyes welling. But it was not sadness stirring in her. On the contrary, it was elation, as though her privation this last half year was being rewarded, as though her meager life was now as large as these woods and wide waters.
Now the baby kicked. She set her needlepoint down and rested her hand on the wiggling child. She closed her eyes in a kind of ecstasy and thought only of the feeling coming up into her hands. When the tremors ceased she took her hand from her belly and wiped her eyes and looked out the window onto the harbor and the Lighthouse Road. There was traffic in and outside the marina, like Hammerfest during the fishing season.
While she sat there a thirty-foot boat flying a Canadian ensign entered the safe water. She stood at the window as it motored along the breakwater to the Lighthouse Road. An officer of the North-West Mounted Police stepped ashore and tied the boat fore and aft to the cleats on the road. Two other Mounties stepped from the boat and were greeted by the county constable, whose shabby garb cut a marked contrast to the sharp red coats of the Canadians.
The four of them stood on the Lighthouse Road and lit their pipes and seemed as jolly as they were official, and after several minutes one of the Mounties stepped back aboard the boat and disappeared belowdecks. Thea could not say why, but an uneasy feeling had settled on her and to quell it she put both of her hands on her belly. The Mountie emerged again, this time trailing his prisoner. Thea knew who that shackled man was by the gooseflesh on her arms.
It was late in the afternoon when Hosea came. Thea had been feeling qualmish since she’d watched the captive come up the Lighthouse Road earlier that day, and when Hosea stepped into the kitchen and said softly, “Miss Eide, Curtis Mayfair has sent word that the unlikely capture of Joshua Smith has come to pass. The Canadian authorities have brought him here. He wishes to interview Smith before he’s extradited to Duluth.”
He went to her side and continued, “He’d like to speak with you as
well. He’s summoning Selmer Gunnarson to help with the testimony.” He paused, looked at her. “Do you understand? You might have to see Smith.”
“I’ll go with her,” Rebekah said. “I’ll help her get herself together.”
“I’ll go with you as well,” Hosea said. “I’ll meet you both downstairs in five minutes.”
Rebekah took Thea to their bedchambers. She closed the door behind them and held Thea’s hands and said, “You understand what’s happening?”
Thea shook her hands free and went to her bed. She lay down on the bed and curled into a ball, her hands resting on her stomach. And she might have wept for fear or sadness or loneliness, but the baby kicked, and whatever else she felt vanished, was replaced with a new pride and purpose.
“He cannot touch you here. He cannot hurt you again,” Rebekah said.
Since the night of the wolves every unexpected shadow had caused her to flinch, but now she felt ready to face that man.
“Do you understand?” Rebekah repeated.
Thea stood, pressed her eyes, and walked to the door in answer.
The magistrate’s chambers had been rearranged since Thea’s last visit. The captain’s chairs that had previously sat in a half circle before his desk now sat behind two tables facing each other. There was a lamp on each table and on the table opposite Thea there were papers and a leather valise. She’d been brought into the empty room and told to wait while Hosea and the constable left through a door behind the magistrate’s desk. The room was hot with the afternoon sun and in the gingham dress she wore Thea began to perspire. She removed a handkerchief from her sleeve and daubed her forehead. She pulled a chair from beneath the empty table and sat down.
It must have been a half hour before Curtis Mayfair and Hosea and the constable returned. Mayfair was dressed now in a linen shirt with a fine collar and a pair of seersucker trousers, the matching coat of which hung over the back of his chair. Spectacles sat low on his nose and magnified the pouches beneath his eyes. He looked spent in every way, but when he spoke it was with much energy.
“Miss Eide, very good to see you again. Hosea tells me you’ve been studying English, is that so?”
Thea looked at Hosea and back at Mayfair and nodded. “Yes,” she said.
“Selmer Gunnarson is on his way just in case we need help with your testimony. Do you understand?”
Again Thea nodded. Again she said, “Yes.”
The magistrate took a deep breath and shifted in his chair. He removed his pocket watch and checked the time and shook his head. To Hosea he said, “It’s as though the time of day held no consequence to these people. Old Gunnarson’s got so much going on he can’t make his appointments?”
“He’ll be here presently, no doubt,” Hosea said, and as though his voice had summoning power, in walked Selmer Gunnarson, flushed and breathing heavily.
Before he could apologize for being tardy Mayfair said, “Thank you for joining us, Mister Gunnarson. You remember Thea Eide.”
Selmer took a seat beside Thea and said hello.
Mayfair removed his spectacles and set them gently on the blotter before him. He joined his hands and cocked his head. “Miss Eide, you testified in March regarding incidents at the Burnt Wood Lumber Camp involving the watch salesman Joshua Smith.” He paused, nodded to Selmer, who quickly translated, speaking softly into Thea’s ear.
Judge Mayfair continued, “Mister Smith fled Gunflint for Duluth, where, on March the sixth, he set fire to the Rathbone sisters’ lodge rooms. The consequences of that blaze resulted in the Parsons Block burning to the ground.” Selmer translated as the judge spoke. “The Meining Hardware Company lost its entire inventory as well as its storefront; Crowley Electric likewise lost everything; the lodge rooms of the Knights of Pythias were destroyed. In all, some forty-five thousand dollars in damages.”
The magistrate shook his solemn head. “The watch salesman Joshua Smith managed to flee Duluth for Port Arthur, Ontario, where he took employment in a hotel livery. Ten days ago he was found unlawfully entering a dry goods store. When the authorities searched his boardinghouse room, they found several hundred dollars in currency and several hundred more in stolen goods. It seems Smith is in the habit of taking that which don’t belong to him.”
Now Mayfair stopped talking to read a document on his desk. Thea, more confused than ever, looked between Selmer and Hosea, neither of whom replied to her questioning look.
Curtis Mayfair set the document back on the blotter. “Miss Eide, Joshua Smith is being extradited. The North-West Mounted Police are in the process of delivering Smith to federal authorities in Duluth, where he’ll be tried for arson and grand larceny, among other things. But before they deliver him, they thought enough to stop and collect the hundred-dollar r
eward we’ve offered for his capture.
“I figured, as long as we have to pay the reward, we may as well get our money’s worth and charge him for his crimes up at the Burnt Wood Camp.” He paused a moment to let Selmer catch up, then put his spectacles back on and looked firmly at Thea. “Miss Eide, I hope I can rely on your testimony this afternoon in our case against the watch salesman Joshua Smith.”
The magistrate studied Thea for a long moment. When she did not respond — how could she? What was being asked of her? — Mayfair simply turned to the constable, nodded, and sat back in his chair.
Thea kept her eyes on the door as though the building would crumble if the weight of her stare weren’t on it. When Joshua Smith came through — his head hanging low, his eyes covered with greasy and unkempt hair, his shoulders slouched, his hands in the pockets of his worn dungarees, his dirty boots unlaced and shuffling across the floor as though weighted with stones — Thea saw a different man than the one who’d violated her. Smith was gaunt and twitchy. The constable pushed him into a chair opposite Thea, where he collapsed with his chin on his chest.
Her impulse was to fly, to raise her shawl like wings and catch a breeze to carry her home. He hadn’t even noticed her sitting there. Seemed not even to know where he was.
“Your honor,” the constable began, he was standing behind Smith, his big hands on the fugitive’s jutting shoulders, “this is our man.” He hit Smith on the ear. “Identify yourself, you goddamned vulture.”
Smith had looked up with the slap, his sight landing on Thea. Immediately he sat upright, he pushed his hair from his eyes. He looked from Thea to the magistrate and back to Thea. The constable hit him again.
“I said identify yourself.”
“I’m Joshua Smith,” he stammered.
Mayfair spoke. “Mister Smith, do you know why you’re sitting in my chambers?”
“Sir?” Smith said.
“From the look on your face, you’ve got some idea.”